


Lost and Found

by BlossomsintheMist



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types
Genre: Abandoned Child, Adopted Parent Relationship, Archived from livejournal, Archived from theforce.net, Child Abandonment, Dead Parents, Eating, Food, Food Issues, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Natural Disasters, Orphans, Parent Death, Zekk as a child, traumatized child
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 02:16:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16864330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlossomsintheMist/pseuds/BlossomsintheMist
Summary: A young Zekk's first meeting with Peckhum.  (Young Jedi Knights characters.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So anyway, this one is all about the childhood of the Young Jedi Knights character Zekk, who may just be one of my favorite characters in all of Star Wars (and who is probably my favorite character outside of the movie characters). He's rather young in this, about nine or ten, much younger than in his first appearance (in which he is either sixteen or seventeen, I believe). If anyone's curious about him, or about the backstory that's alluded to in this fic (or that follows this), just ask and I'll be happy to answer! This fic was originally posted prior to 2008 on theforce.net, then in 2008 on Livejournal.

The starport was a busy place, bustling with life and energy in a low thrumming vibration like the hum of an active hyperdrive somewhere deep in his chest. It was filled with beings of all kinds, ones he’d never seen before or even imagined existed, and all of them were hard and busy, preoccupied with their own affairs, not giving a slagging minute for the affairs of a ragged dark-haired human boy hanging around the edges of the hangar and watching the incoming ships and the spacers going about their business.   
  
But that was okay; Zekk was getting used to it. In some ways he liked it better that way. It was better not to be noticed than to look like a tempting target. He’d figured that much out already. He rubbed at a fresh bruise on his cheek and tried to blend into the shadows cast by the crates of cargo he leaned against as best he could, letting his eyes travel aimlessly over the ebb and flow of beings before his eyes. It was a seedy dive of a place and he didn’t even know the name of the planet, but it wasn’t Ennth, and that was what mattered. His mind flashed back to the cold of the transparisteel as he pressed his fingers up against the viewport and watched the planet far below him, felt the crushing forces of the ground rising up and crashing together, felt as if his muscles and bones were being smashed into nothing, and knew that they were never, ever coming back—   
  
He set his jaw and ground his teeth together and blinked the tears stubbornly back.   
  
Zekk was starting to have a hard time keeping track of all the starships he’d stowed away on or found work with and all the starports he’d visited since he’d left home. He’d found out that a lot of sentients weren’t too eager to pay an undersized human boy for his work, even when he’d worked hard. And what was he supposed to do about it? Talk back and get himself slammed in the face again, or maybe worse? Better just to shut his mouth and take himself elsewhere. There were a lot of people here. Surely he’d be able to find someplace to make a few honest credits. He _was_ a hard worker, after all.   
  
His eyes followed the passage of a repulsorcart full of blumfruit, and he became newly aware of the hollow, grinding ache in the pit of his stomach, the grumbling complaints of his empty belly. He wasn’t too sure when the last time he’d eaten something that looked half that tasty had been, and it was hard to bury the thought that the back of the cart was unguarded, and he was small and quick, and it wouldn’t be tough at all just to grab a few. Zekk swallowed hard against the saliva prickling in his mouth and pushed the thought away. He wasn’t a thief. He never had been. He was looking for honest work.   
  
But he’d used up the last of his credits just to get here and on that meal however long it had been ago, and honest work hadn’t fed him over the past couple of days.   
  
Zekk hunched down over his crossed arms and turned away. He wasn’t going to get anywhere standing around staring all googly-eyed at other people’s cargo that he’d never be able to pay for. Time to start looking for something better to do. Something that could make him credits.   
  
He had a second of warning, but it wasn’t enough. A big hand came down heavily on his shoulder and spun him around, and then he was looking up into the narrow, swarthy face of the chief mechanic’s assistant from the last ship he’d worked. Zekk tried hard to bury the sudden icy fear that clenched his insides into a frozen little ball, but he knew and he was afraid the other mechanic did too that the man absolutely terrified him. “Well, what have we here,” the man said, grinning to show pointed teeth that he’d probably had to file to actually get them looking like that. “If it isn’t our little womp rat.” He shoved Zekk backward and took a step forward, and Zekk’s shoulders hit the cool plasteel of the crates behind him. He was trapped.   
  
“I—I don’t work for you now, Dreno,” he forced out, and hated the way his voice trembled, stumbling over the words. “I’m not signed on with the _Nebula Drifter_ anymore.” _And I don’t think I ever was in the first place, you slimy Huttspawn,_ he thought angrily. _You just told me I was hired and let me do all the work and shoved me around and kept the credits. I hope you end up as schutta-bait, you scum-sucking slimetrail._   
  
“Funny about that,” Dreno said with a wide, pointy smile that made him look more like a nexu than a human, just minus the fur and claws. “I’m not either.” He shoved Zekk again, almost playfully, and Zekk bit his lip and clenched his hands into fists against the slick surface of the cargo box as Dreno’s hand thudded into his shoulder, probably hard enough to bruise. “No,” he continued. “I’ve got a new berth now, as chief mechanic on the _Alderaan Star_. What d’you think of that, y’little vent-crawler?”   
  
Zekk fought the urge to close his eyes and let himself slump back against the box as a wave of despair swept over him like the waters of a flood. He’d spoken to one of the engine crewers aboard the _Alderaan Star_ yesterday about a job, and it’d seemed hopeful at the time, but with Ton Dreno as chief mechanic he might as well throw himself down a Sarlacc pit because the only job he’d get there’d be the same kind he’d had aboard the _Nebula Drifter_ , and Zekk didn’t think much of his chances of escaping from Dreno’s grasp a second time. He’d be stuck as an unpaid laborer to this lazy Hutt-slime for the rest of his life, which probably wouldn’t be long, getting hit around and sent to do all the dangerous jobs and fed less than you’d give a pet pittin.   
  
“Don’t see what that has to do with me,” he managed to force out unevenly and glanced around, looking for an escape route. He could probably lose Dreno among the crates if he made a run for it, there were some advantages to being small, and if this hanger was anything like the other ones in this starport there should be a service hatch just behind where the boxes were stacked more loosely over there. If he played things right, he could hide back in there for a bit, and pretty soon Dreno’d lose interest and go away. His attention span wasn’t all that long.   
  
“Hey,” Dreno said sharply. “Where d’you think you’re looking, you little brat?” He reached down to grab for Zekk, but he was already moving, ducking out from under Dreno’s enclosing arm. He reached up and with a grunt of effort hauled himself up on top of the nearest crate. His muscles burned and trembled, complaining bitterly about being made to work so hard on top of the inadequate nourishment he’d been providing them with, but Zekk forced himself to ignore his shaking limbs as he scrambled around the side of one of the stacked boxes. His hands, sweaty with fear and exertion, slipped stickily along the side of the boxes as he squeezed between two of them and out the other side.   
  
He was closer to the wall now and completely separated from Dreno by the crates, though he could still hear the man’s muttered threats, threats Zekk had no doubt the man would carry out if he ever got his hands on him again. He swallowed hard and felt sick to his stomach as he struggled to quiet the ragged thumping of his heart. He didn’t even want to think about the things Dreno was talking about, let alone them happening to him. He forced himself to ignore that deep, raging voice and focus on wriggling his way back further into the stack of crates. The slippery surface of the boxes made for uncertain footing, and he had to concentrate on where he was putting his feet or risk falling, and who in stars knew what would happen to him then. Zekk shivered and gritted his teeth and squeezed back in further.   
  
Dreno was shifting crates now; Zekk could hear his grunts of effort and the rasp of the plasteel surfaces as they were dragged roughly across each other. Maybe Dreno’d get in trouble for moving someone else’s cargo, he thought hopefully, but it was a vague hope at best and nothing to bet his survival on. Hopes hadn’t saved his Mum and Da and—and they wouldn’t save him. Zekk swallowed stubbornly against the hard lump of stinging pain that formed in his throat whenever he thought about them and searched for the next place to put his foot.   
  
He thought he’d found a good one, but as soon as he set his weight down on it, little as that was, especially these days, the battered old spacer’s boot a couple sizes too large for him slipped off the edge, and he lost his balance and his hold on the boxes around him. He flailed for balance, going hot as molten adrenaline slammed though him, then icy cold as vertigo followed it and his fingers slipped off again and he teetered on the brink of slamming back against the box behind him and bringing the whole stack crashing down on his head. If that happened, he wouldn’t have to worry about Dreno anymore, cause he’d just be dead. Squished as flat as Mum and Da.   
  
Incredibly, though, his fingers stuck in a deep crack on the edge of one of the boxes, and he managed to pull himself back to steadiness with it even as his wrist wrenched painfully from the stress and the awkward angle. He lurched forward again and only just found purchase on the box he’d nearly fallen away from, ending up plastered along the side of it, shaking and freezing with cold sweat and feeling like he was about to cry, his heart pounding so hard his chest hurt. He clung there for a moment, panting and scared and trying to convince himself that he hadn’t just almost died.   
  
But he could still hear Dreno moving boxes and cursing at him, and he knew he didn’t have time to huddle there and shake, much as he’d like to. Zekk forced himself to pry his hands away and slowly shifted himself around until his back rested against the box. He was only a few boxes away from where the service hatch should be. He could only hope that all the hangars followed the same plan the way they seemed to and that Dreno wouldn’t find it, that he’d be safe there, because if he wasn’t and Dreno did find him it’d be too late to form another plan.   
  
No use shaking himself to pieces over it now. Zekk swallowed hard again and stepped forward, carefully this time, onto the next box, trying to ignore the unmistakable sounds of Dreno getting closer, his curses increasing in virulence the whole time. One more tight squeeze between crates, and then he was dropping down behind them all, squishing himself between the last one and the wall. He was suddenly glad of his skinny frame as he edged along the dirty durasteel wall. There it was, the hatch—he let out a silent breath of relief and started to struggle with it to wrench it open.   
  
The effort left his fingers grease-stained and bleeding, but finally it came loose enough for Zekk to squeeze himself through, if he sucked in his breath and made himself as flat and thin as possible. Even so, he banged his hips and shoulders painfully in the process, and if he’d been eating at all regularly over the past month or so he had the feeling he’d never have managed it at all.   
  
The space inside was barely big enough for a mynock and filled with protruding wires and conduits and plugs, but Zekk swiped them away from him, careful not to pull anything out, and turned to tug the hatch closed behind him. It wouldn’t quite shut completely, but it was just close enough that he figured there was a chance no one would notice, especially with all the boxes in the way. The space inside was cramped and tiny and smelled strongly of tibanna gas and engine exhaust, but Zekk only just fit, and it seemed safe enough to breathe.   
  
Zekk wedged himself a little further in, settled himself uncomfortably with plugs and wires poking into his back and sides, and drew his knees up to his chest, trying to make himself the smallest he possibly could. When he was curled up into a tight, awkward little ball, he laid his head down on his knees and bit down hard on the inside of his lips as he tried to quiet his loud, ragged breathing. He was still shaking, his body practically vibrating with tension, like a power cell or something. He clamped down hard with the arms around his knees and struggled hard to be still.   
  
He could still hear Dreno outside. He sounded slagging close. Zekk squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to think about what would happen next if Dreno found him in his makeshift hiding place. He’d drag him out first—he could already feel the bruising grip digging into the muscles of his arm—and then probably rough him up a little, how much probably depended on how angry he really was, and then—and then what? He’d be dragged back to Dreno’s new berth and made his unpaid servant for as long as he survived. Who’d care what happened to a little drifter without a credit to speak of? Everyone else had enough to worry about already, their own problems. He couldn’t blame them for not caring about what happened to a nobody like him. Why should anyone care?   
  
The sound of another box shifting echoed above him, and Zekk winced and buried his head against his knees.   
  
“Hey,” came a gruff, scratchy voice from above him. A new voice. “What’re you doing with my cargo?”   
  
Zekk didn’t dare to even breathe. Was it even possible? His throwaway thought about Dreno getting in trouble for tossing someone else’s cargo around had really happened? He couldn’t believe it.   
  
“This is New Republic stuff, this is,” the new voice continued. “Medical supplies for relief on some of the worlds hit by that crazy schutta Daala couple’a years back. Whaddaya think you’re doing?”   
  
A little spark of bitterness managed to burn its way through the cool wash of relief flowing through Zekk. He had no idea who Daala was and couldn’t have cared less, but Ennth needed disaster relief now, more than someplace that’d gotten slagged up a couple of years ago did.   
  
A second later he felt shame, hot and liquid, working its way up from his belly, and clenched his arms tighter around his knees as tears stung the back of his eyelids. A lot of people had been hurt on Ennth, a lot of people had died. He still remembered the tearing pain in his chest, as if someone had set off a blasting charge inside him as he watched the planet break apart, knew people were dying, _felt_ them die. He didn’t see how he could ever forget. He wasn’t going to wish that on anybody else just ‘cause his parents had died too and left him all alone, and if those supplies could help anybody anywhere they should go there.   
  
“I—I thought I saw a Eriaduan rat,” he could hear Dreno explaining lamely. Zekk had to fight to hold back a snort of derision. That was the best Dreno could come up with? He could’ve done better than that. “You know how they get. It ran back in there. I was looking for it. You want to kill those things fast, don’t want them getting loose in the power cables, having litters.”   
  
Apparently the owner of the other voice thought that explanation was just as lame as Zekk did. “A rat,” he said. “Uh-huh. Get out of here, and if I catch you around here again I’ll report you to security at the end of my blaster. Now move it.”   
  
Zekk could hear Dreno’s angry reply, the clink of his boots against the floor as he stalked off, could hear the other man mutter, “And cut down on the spice, you stars-damned glitbiter, nosing around my cargo,” as he did, and had to stifle a slightly hysterical laugh. A moment later, he could hear the spacer who’d sent Dreno packing mutter something about there always being more work to do. The sound of his boots followed Dreno’s off into the distance. Zekk held completely still for a moment more, but all was silent from the vicinity of the boxes. He let himself relax a little, let his feet stretch out enough to brush up against the access hatch.   
  
He’d stay in here a while longer to be certain they were gone, but he’d have to get moving again soon. He’d have to start his search for a job all over again, he guessed, ‘cause he sure couldn’t work a ship Dreno was working. His stomach roiled, curling in around nothing but emptiness. He felt hollowed out inside, cold, like the vacuum of space. What had been the last thing he’d eaten? Had it been that half-eaten slider he’d dug out of the trash? No, that’d been days ago. All that overripe fruits he’d seen rotting in the discards outside that diner, maybe. He’d eaten so much of those that he’d thrown up a few hours later. That still struck him as being kind of a waste. It didn’t really matter, though, he supposed. He didn’t remember now anyway.   
  
Zekk laid his head down sideways on his arms and let his mind wander back to Mum’s nerf-meat stew and flatbread and fizz-pudding for dessert, too tired to fight the memories anymore the way he had been doing. It didn’t even seem real anymore. Now his reality consisted of scrounging for credits, and skulking around the holds of spaceships crewed by beings he’d never even seen holos of before, and trying not to sound too pathetic when he asked yet another spacer to give him a job because, no, sir, I really am a hard worker, and yes, sir, I know I’m small but I’m stronger than I look, I really am, and his stomach always hurting and trying too hard not to remember.   
  
Mum had always smelled like flour and sweet-blossom, and he had her two-tone emerald eyes, and he could still see the swirl of her skirt and her brightly colored shawl, the one Da had bought for her and that she always wore even though she’d laughed at him for it and said it didn’t match a thing she owned, and she’d held Zekk’s hand on the shuttle away from home and told him that things’d be different when they could go back home but that they’d be back soon anyway, and she’d always teased him for taking things apart and called him her little grease-mynock. Da had been tall and dark and would take Zekk along as he worked the fields and make stupid jokes and laugh at them anyway and now they were dead, because they’d left him and gone away, because even though he’d been close to crying, and he never, ever cried—not then—and definitely not in front of all those other people, and begging them not to go ‘cause something bad, something terrible, was about to happen, he could feel it, but they’d gone away anyway and left him alone, and he wasn’t going back, he wasn’t, because it would never be home, not without Mum and Da there, and he hadn’t been important enough and they’d left him and gone away and they were never coming back. Never.   
  


* * *

  
  
  
He woke with a start at the sound of a low, gravelly voice, terrifyingly close. He banged his head against the top of the hatch and smacked his arm hard into a power coupling as he flailed awake, and then he blinked sleep out of his eyes and was starting, panting and terrified, into the grizzled face and clear blue eyes of a middle-aged spacer.   
  
Zekk knew subconsciously that it wasn’t Dreno, but he couldn’t help the avalanche of panic that tumbled over him like a load of crushing rock, drove him to flinch away from the man’s outstretched hand, press himself further into the sliver of room left at the back of the hatch, trying to make himself as small as he possibly could. For a long moment there was nothing except the dark, shivering, suffocating terror, and he couldn’t breathe and everything was pressing in on him, and he couldn’t hear over the thundering of his heart in his ears. He didn’t seem to be able to stop the fear or push it back, and he was left shaking and breathing hard and sick to his stomach with the shame of it.   
  
There was a dawning understanding in the man’s eyes, even as Zekk shook and struggled to get a grip on himself, and then he said, “So you’re the rat that gundark was talking about, huh?”   
  
His eyes looked honest and kind, surrounded by crinkling lines that suggested he spent a lot of time smiling, but Zekk just couldn’t be sure. Bad enough that the man’d found him hiding back in here; he figured it had to look pretty suspicious. He swallowed hard. “Sir?” he said, keeping his voice carefully blank.   
  
The spacer looked at him as if measuring something, then gave a low chuckle and shook his head. “Can’t blame you for hiding from that guy, kiddo,” he said. “He looked mad enough to bite the ears off a bantha.”   
  
Zekk shrugged uncomfortably. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir,” he said.   
  
The man raised his eyebrows. “Oh, you don’t? Whatcha doin’ hiding back in there, then?”   
  
Zekk lifted his chin in defiance, even though he knew the whole thing was ridiculous. “Sleeping,” he said. “Y’know—the spaceport’s loud, and busy, hard to find a private place to take a nap.”   
  
“Sleeping,” the spacer repeated. He gave Zekk an incredulous glance.   
  
Zekk bit his lip. “This’s a public spaceport, isn’t it?” he asked, but he thought it came out a little more defensively than he’d wanted it to.   
  
The spacer seemed to give the matter some thought then decide to let it drop. “Sure is,” he said. “Come on, kid, let me give you a hand out of there.” When Zekk hesitated, appeared to guess to the reason and said, “He’s long gone, I promise, and I won’t stand for him loitering over here around my cargo again, no matter what the reason he was hanging around.”   
  
Zekk though that coming out now was kind of like admitting that Dreno was the reason he’d been hiding in the first place, but he accepted the man’s hand anyway. It was covered with nerf-hide gloves so that only the tips of callused fingers brushed against Zekk’s skin, and he let him tug him out of the service hatch and up to his feet. His muscles shot awake with pain after remaining in the same awkward positions for so long—how long had he been asleep?—and his bad wrist stung, and he had to bite back a groan as he almost overbalanced and fell over, but the man steadied him without saying anything about it, and for that he was grateful.   
  
“But—uh, that’s what I’ve been doing, isn’t it?” he said, not meeting the man’s eyes as he rubbed his grease-stained hands on his even grimier jumpsuit. “Loitering?”   
  
The spacer gave him another assessing glance. “You’re pretty quick for a kid,” he said. “I’ll give you that.”   
  
Zekk just shrugged and looked away. He wondered if this spacer needed any help hauling his cargo or keeping his ship up, and if he dared ask. At least this man seemed a little nicer than most of the others had. Then, so had Dreno, at first. But Dreno’d always felt mean, somewhere far underneath, Zekk thought. He just hadn’t paid attention to it at first. He felt nothing like that from this man. It was amazingly dumb to trust himself to a feeling, but how much choice did he have these days? He shot a look at him out of the corner of his eye. The man was weathered, unkempt, sort of scary-looking with his beat-up coveralls and side blaster and unruly graying brown hair, but his eyes had seemed kind. How many people had looked at Zekk like that since—well, that didn’t matter.   
  
“Shouldn’t you be somewhere else, kid?” the man said suddenly. “It’s getting pretty late.”   
  
Zekk bit down hard on the inside of his lip and didn’t look up to meet his eyes. “No,” he said shortly. It was all he could bring himself _to_ say.   
  
“You sure?” came the dubious reply.   
  
“I’m sure,” Zekk shot back. He clenched his hands into fists and told himself it was probably hopeless so not to get his hopes up and running, and looked up to meet the man’s clear blue eyes. “You’re a cargo hauler right do you need any help on your ship,” he said all in one breath, then blew his breath out and forced his hands to relax, rubbing them on the torn sides of his jumpsuit. “I mean,” he said more slowly, taking care to enunciate the words properly this time, “I was wondering if there might be a space open on your crew, sir.”   
  
The man blinked down at him. “That so?” he said. “You good at anything, boy?”   
  
Zekk told himself not to take offense, that he was small and ragged and dirty and looked like trash. “I’m a mechanic,” he said. “A good one.” When the man just looked at him disbelievingly, he felt more desperate words slipping out from between his lips. “I’m good at finding things too.”   
  
“Well, now,” the man said, “I’ve been doing fine on my own so far.”   
  
Zekk’s stomach felt like it had fallen in, and he had to work to get the words out past the hitch in his throat, but he said,” Oh. Okay. Well, that’s all right, then,” and started to turn away so the man wouldn’t see the disappointment written across his face, see him fighting back tired tears. He shoved his hands into his pockets. He shouldn’t have expected anything. He really shouldn’t have. That’d been dumb.   
  
“Still,” the man continued, as if Zekk hadn’t said anything. “Wouldn’t hurt to show you my ship, see what you can do, now would it? Always been my policy to give beings a fair chance.”   
  
Zekk stopped in mid-turn and then slowly shifted himself back around. “You’re giving me . . . a chance?” he asked in a low voice, hardly able to believe he’d heard the man correctly. But he didn’t look like someone who was lying or who was just toying with him. He looked, he really looked, like he was telling the truth.  Felt like it, too.  But . . . .   
  
The man shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “Come on, kid, she’s over this way.” He started off in the direction of the far side of the hangar, apparently unconcerned whether Zekk followed after him or not. “I’ve got to warn you, though,” he said. “She’s a temperamental little lady. Call her the _Lightning Rod_.”   
  
Zekk had to scramble to keep up with him after he’d gotten past the shock, persuaded his muscles to start working again. “Why the _Lightning Rod_?” he asked.   
  
The spacer grinned down at him. “Funny you should ask, because that's quite the story,” he said. “I was out on Mon Calamari picking up a shipment this one time, and this storm blew up—you wouldn’t have believed the strength of this storm, clouds covering the whole sky—and then . . . .”


	2. Chapter 2

“So,” Peckhum said as he and the scruffy dark-haired little starport rat neared the other side of the hangar from his stacked cargo. “You got a name, kiddo? Mine’s Peckhum.”   
  
The kid’s eyes dropped, and he stuck his hands in his pockets again, hunching into himself as if for protection. “It’s Zekk,” he said.   
  
“Just Zekk?” Peckhum asked. “No last name?”   
  
Green eyes flashed up at him from under thick dark lashes. “Just Peckhum?”   
  
Peckhum laughed. Yeah, the kid was sharp, all right. “You’ve got me there,” he said as he looked up. “Okay, Zekk,” he said. “Here we are. Check her out, kid.”   
  
Zekk’s eyes came up, then went wide as his whole body stilled. “Wow,” he said softly, under his breath, so quietly Peckhum wasn’t sure he’d heard him at first. “Astral.”   
  
Peckhum grinned to himself, pleased by the kid’s wide eyes and open mouth. It wasn’t often he found someone who could appreciate the _Lightning Rod_ for the amazing lady she really was—most people just looked at her and saw an old piece of junk—but it looked like he’d just found himself one of them.   
  
A moment later Zekk had managed to snap his mouth closed. “Looks old,” he said. “She’s in great shape, though.” He looked uncertainly up at Peckhum. “Must take a lot of work to keep her like that,” he said. “What do you want me to do?”   
  
Peckhum laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder beneath the baggy jumpsuit he was wearing—kriff, he was skinny, his shoulder blade sharp-edged under his fingers—and brought him along as he started up the ramp and keyed open the entry hatch. “I guess we’ll start by seeing what you know about hyperdrives,” he said. “C’mere, kid, it’s down this hatchway here.” He gestured and Zekk nodded, glanced at him as if for reassurance as to what he was supposed to do, then grabbed hold of the ladder visible in the open hatchway and disappeared down it in a second. Peckhum blinked in slight surprise and followed after him a bit more slowly. Well, the kid knew his way around a supply ladder, anyway.   
  
He quickly decided that the kid hadn’t been conning him, at least. Zekk knew his way around a ship’s hyperdrive too, however a kid like him had picked up the knowledge. He even made a few good suggestions that should be damned useful if Peckhum ever found the time to implement them. The kid had been right about that, too; he could use a hand keeping the _Lightning Rod_ up and running.   
  
But it wasn’t going to be this Zekk, he told himself as he watched the boy wriggle himself out from one of the service vents and brush his messy dark hair out of his eyes with the back of his hand. Competent and intelligent as the boy seemed, he was a baby, no more than nine or maybe ten. He had no business working the space lanes; he was a _kid_. A runaway, probably. And Peckhum wasn’t going to be the one responsible for taking the kid away from a home, a family, everything he’d ever known, not if he could help it.   
  
A nagging thread of doubt tugged at him—Zekk was so kriffing skinny, and his jumpsuit and boots were too big for him, his hair way too long. He looked thin and neglected and uncared for, not like a boy who had a home or family waiting for him someplace, and he had the tough air of a child who knew all too well that there wasn’t anyone who was going to be looking out for him but himself. And then there was that swelling bruise on his cheek. He wouldn’t want to send the kid back to a family who hit him around, if that was what was going on.   
  
But the bruise was probably courtesy of old gundark-face back at the cargo stacks, Peckhum figured, and Zekk’s hard air probably just because he was naturally a tough kid. At least, that was what Peckhum was trying to tell himself. He—he didn’t want to be responsible for this boy, he really didn’t. He had a tough job, a lonely job, a dangerous job. It was no place for a child. Zekk was bright, and quick, and sure, Peckhum was starting to like him already, but that was all the more reason to send him packing now, before either of them got too attached to one another.   
  
“Where’d you learn your way around a hyperdrive like that, kiddo?” Peckhum asked first, trying to sound only idly interested as Zekk scrambled up to look down behind the hyperdrive core.   
  
“Here and there,” Zekk answered. That husky, boyish tenor sounded tight, tense, at the question. “I think you’ve got a bad power cable back here, sir. Well, it’s not bad yet, but it will be pretty soon. I could install a spare for you.”   
  
“I think we can wait on that,” Peckhum said with a wry grin. “And you didn’t answer my question, boy.”   
  
Zekk shrugged and reached up to steady himself as he climbed up higher. “There isn’t much of an answer, sir,” he replied, then hesitated for a long moment. When he spoke again his voice was strained and shaking. “Back—back home, I used to like to take things apart to see how they worked then try and put them back together. “But—” he broke off and Peckhum thought he heard the telltale sound of a gulping swallow. “A-anyway, I’ve picked things up since then. You know, around.”   
  
“Uh-huh,” Peckhum said skeptically. “Around.”   
  
“Yes, sir,” Zekk replied.   
  
Peckhum looked at the slender back beneath that ragged jumpsuit, those skinny, wiry shoulders, and thought. “You sure are a polite little thing, ain’tcha?”   
  
“Um,” Zekk said. “Y-yes, sir? My mum—she t-taught me to be respectful.” His voice wavered and broke badly. “Said being rude didn’t serve any purpose, and that being respectful helped others to th-think better of you.” He sounded like he was about to cry, and Peckhum wasn’t at all surprised when he reached up with one arm and rubbed his sleeve hard across his eyes, quickly, as if he didn’t want Peckhum to see.   
  
“All right, kiddo,” Peckhum said. “That’s good; that’s enough. Give ‘er a rest for a bit.”   
  
Zekk nodded and slid down off the hyperdrive to land in front of him and straighten up. His fingers clenched in the fabric of his jumpsuit, then he smoothed them out again and took a deep breath. Peckhum looked him over critically. The boy was small, built slight even if he hadn’t been as damned skinny as he was. His skin was very pale beneath the bruises and smudged dirt, his eyes a startlingly deep green against that fine porcelain skin, striking against the dark hair that fell in dirty, greasy tangles around his face. His chin was narrow but firm and looked stubborn, like the determined set of his full mouth. His fine bones were angular and slim and far too prominent. His eyes were too old for him, with a circle of darkness around the pupils. What had happened to this kid? What was he doing in a place like this?   
  
He couldn’t take this boy along with him back to Coruscant. He just couldn’t.   
  
“How’d I do, sir?” Zekk asked, and Peckhum could see the quick, painful flash of desperate hope in those deep green eyes before it was buried once more. “What do you think?”   
  
Peckhum sighed, feeling tired and heavy and old. He didn’t want to hurt the kid, didn't want to crush that painfully masked hope, but it was for the best. He knew it was. “I’m sorry, Zekk, kid,” he said. “I just can’t hire you.”   
  
It hurt to watch the hope fall flat in those eyes, watch them go dull and despairing, the kid’s careful, mature-beyond-his-years composure splinter and fall away, his lips start to tremble before he firmed them again stubbornly. Even so, there was a stark, raw sort of desperation to his quaking voice that made Peckhum wince as the boy’s hands knotted back up into fists and he burst out, “Did I do something wrong? I’m sorry, sir—I didn’t mean to—I can—I can do better, just give me another chance, I _know_ I can.”   
  
“It’s not anything you did, Zekk,” Peckhum said, trying to make his voice gentle without quite being sure how to do it. “You didn’t screw up.” He laid a soothing hand on Zekk’s shoulder.   
  
“What is it then?” Zekk demanded, genuine anguish in his voice. He wrenched away. “What’s wrong with me? What can I do?”   
  
“Kid, you’re just too young,” Peckhum said, trying to make him understand. He gestured around him. “You’re not ready for this kind of life. You should go home, back to wherever you came from.”   
  
“I don’t believe this!” Zekk exclaimed. He looked straight at him, meeting Peckhum’s gaze straight on, and his expressive green eyes flashed with hurt and the anger of someone who’s suffered too much, been pushed too far, and who was too tired not to hide it or try and fight the emotion. “I don’t slagging believe it! Why do you think I’m here now? I don’t have anywhere else to go!”   
  
“But you have to come from somewhere, kid,” Peckhum said, trying to calm him. “I’ll take you back there if you want—”   
  
Zekk stumbled backward, his eyes going wide and frantic, dark with fear. “No!” he said. “No! I’m not going back there, never, not ever again!”   
  
Peckhum took a deep breath, looked at Zekk, shaking visibly, his thin chest heaving, his eyes wild and panic-stricken, his chin wobbling, his voice wavering out of control, and said, feeling suddenly incredibly sad for this poor wounded child, “Was it really that bad, kid?”   
  
Zekk’s eyes filled suddenly with tears, as if all it had taken to break through his control had been a few sympathetic words. “They’re dead,” he choked. “M-Mum and Da. They’re both dead. I _c-can’t_ go back, don’t you see? I don’t have anywhere to go. They’re g-gone.”   
  
There was more to it, than what he was saying, Peckhum thought, something about wherever home was that he was holding back, but that didn’t matter. Zekk’s situation was clear to him now, and he’d misjudged the kid. Instead of a runaway he was an orphan, tossed on the chancy mercy of the space-lanes.   
  
Just like he had been, a very long time ago.   
  
“All right, kiddo,” he said. “Zekk. Space that last part. I take it back. You’re hired.”   
  
Zekk froze in place. A tear slid out of his eye and slipped down his cheek. “Wh-what?” he stammered.   
  
“You’re hired,” Peckhum said, and clapped him on the shoulder. The boy winced away, but Peckhum didn't take it personally. The kid was jumpy. “Welcome to the crew of the _Lightning Rod_.”   
  
Zekk straightened up and wiped his eyes with the grimy sleeve of his flightsuit again. “Thank you, sir,” he said. His voice was practically vibrating with earnest sincerity. “I won’t let you down. I promise.”   
  
Peckhum grinned down at him. “I don’t think you will, kid,” he said. “You know, I don’t think you will.”   
  
  
  
  
  
  
“So,” Zekk said, as he set down one side of a cargo canister in the _Lightning Rod_ ’s hold, “since I’m signed on with you now and all, uh, where are we going exactly?”   
  
Peckhum set down his end of the box and looked over at the boy, who leaned against it and grinned hesitantly over at him. Peckhum wondered offhand how long it would take to get a real, unrestrained smile out of the kid, but he figured it might take awhile. That was okay with him, though. By every indication, Zekk’d had it rough. It’d probably take some time before he remembered how to trust anybody. It was surprising enough how friendly he was, really. Peckhum got the impression he was trying pretty hard and wished he could tell the boy he could ease up and relax, but he couldn’t think of any way to do it without sounding patronizing. “We’re dropping this stuff off on Coruscant so it can be distributed to the planets that need it most,” he said.   
  
“Oh,” Zekk said and looked down at his hands where they rested against the box. He shifted them restlessly, then seemed to still them with an effort of will and spread them flat. “Right. Do you think—” he stopped, seemed as if he were about to say something more, then shook his head. “Um. Never mind.” He looked back up at Peckhum. “Do you live on Coruscant, then?” The boy had a slight, odd accent, Peckhum thought, not one he could place, just enough to give the name of the capitol world an unusual lilting inflection.   
  
“Sure do,” he said. “Not a bad place to live when you come down to it. Not the best place in the galaxy, either, but at least there you know what’s going on.”   
  
“It’s the center of government, right?” the boy asked. “For the . . . New Republic?” He seemed to have to think about the name of the government a bit. Peckhum decided he must have come from a real backwater. The boy had all the signs—accent, uncertainty about the wider galaxy, rather unusual coloring. Seemed like he’d come a long way away from home, wherever that might have been.   
  
Peckhum shoved the box to the side, into place. “Sure is,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I work for them, as a cargo-hauler.”   
  
Zekk straightened up and his eyes went wide. “You work for the government?” he said, and he sounded a little awestruck.   
  
Peckhum smiled. “Sure,” he said. “A lot of people do. It’s nothing special. Someone has to haul the cargo, right?”   
  
Zekk blinked, looked like he was thinking about that. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess so.”   
  
“It’s the truth, kid,” Peckhum replied and started for the ramp again. “Come on, we’ve still got more crates to haul up here.”   
  
Zekk nodded and turned to follow him. He wobbled on his feet as he did so and reached out with one hand to steady himself against the nearby cargo box. He sucked in a deep breath, blew it out again, and then pushed himself away, stuck his hands in his pockets, and followed Peckhum down the ramp. The whole thing had only taken a few seconds, and if Peckhum hadn’t happened to be looking back at him in that moment he would never have seen a thing. He looked away before Zekk could notice the direction of his gaze. Zekk didn’t say anything as they headed down the ramp and back across the hangar, so Peckhum figured he hadn’t wanted him to know. The kid seemed like the type who liked to keep his business to himself, anyway.   
  
Peckhum looked down at the boy beside him as the walked, let his eyes rest on his thin shoulders beneath that oversized jumpsuit, those slim features pinched tight over those angular, too-obvious bones, and made a decision. “Hey, kid,” he said. “You hungry?”   
  
Zekk went still, missed a step before he seemed to shake himself back into movement. “Kinda,” he said, and though his voice was offhand on the surface, there was shivering strain beneath it. Desperation, Peckhum thought. Yeah, the kid was hungry.   
  
And yet he hadn’t said a thing. Would he have waited until they were done loading to ask? Until it came time for evening meal? Or would he just have kept quiet until the next time Peckhum felt like eating? He didn’t know the kid well enough yet to be sure, but he was starting to get a feeling it might be the last. He did know, though, that this wasn’t your typical kid. Not even your typical orphaned drifter.   
  
“’Cause I’ve been thinking about taking a break to get a snack myself,” he said. “There’s a diner on the side of the hangar, caters mostly to spacers. Why don’t we head over there?”   
  
He could see Zekk swallow hard, those slim shoulders stiffen. “I’d like to, sir,” he said. “But I don’t—I don’t have any money.”   
  
“That wouldn’t be a problem,” Peckhum said, surprised. “I’d pay for ya.”   
  
Zekk’s hands clenched in the sides of his jumpsuit, his fingers worrying the dirty fabric. “I—I couldn’t let you do that, sir,” he said in a choked, aching sort of voice, and wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m not a charity case. I make my own way.”   
  
Peckhum blinked at him, honestly shocked. He’d more than half assumed that the whole reason Zekk had been so interested in hooking up with him had been on the chance that Peckhum’d buy the kid a hot meal, give him a few handouts, and he hadn’t blamed him for it, though he wouldn’t have hired him if he hadn’t thought the boy was willing to work and work hard as well. But apparently all Zekk had wanted from him had honestly been a job. “No, kid,” he said. “It wouldn’t be like that. It’s my way of paying you, see. I don’t carry much hard currency or credit chips on me, so I thought I’d pay your way, like, until we get to Coruscant.”   
  
“Oh,” Zekk said, and appeared to consider this. “I guess that’d be all right, then,” he said, and then, more quietly, “thank you, sir. I really am hungry.”   
  
Peckhum looked at the boy, at his skinny square-held shoulders and deep green eyes and smudged face and the small, tough hands shoved in the pockets of his ragged dirty jumpsuit and thought, this is a kid with dignity. He was just a kid, but he hadn’t let his life, however hard it’d been, take that from him, and that was more than Peckhum could say about a lot of adults he’d known. To preserve that dignity, he said, “You know, so am I,” and started for the diner, measuring his steps so it would be easier for Zekk’s shorter stride to stay alongside his. As the boy caught up to him, he added, “And you don’t have to call me sir all the time, y’know. I appreciate it, but now you’re working for me you can just call me Peckhum.”   
  
“Are you sure?” Zekk asked, and looked up at him a little anxiously, Peckhum thought.   
  
“Yep, I’m pretty sure,” Peckhum said. “It confuses me—I’m always looking around to see who you’re talkin’ to. I’m no Jedi Knight or nothin’. Peckhum’ll do just fine.”   
  
“All right, s—Peckhum,” Zekk said, then his forehead creased. “Jedi Knight?” he said, and it was obvious by the tone of his voice that the phrase was an unfamiliar one.   
  
Wow, the kid really had come from a backwater, hadn’t he? Peckhum’d thought the news of Skywalker’s training center had spread all over the Outer Rim too by now. He’d certainly been hearing rumors about it. “Yeah,” he said, “you know, the guardian of peace and justice in the Old Republic?” The kid looked at him blankly. It was pretty obvious he _didn’t_ know, and in fact had no idea what Peckhum was talking about. “They protect people,” he said. “Keep the peace. The Empire destroyed them, but they’re back now. This kid named Luke Skywalker, he revived the Order; he’s trainin’ new ones.”   
  
“So,” Zekk said slowly, “they’re like . . . galactic police?”   
  
Peckhum grinned at the image. He’d never thought of it that way before, but the kid did have a point. It was hard to reconcile his long ago memories of tall, proud Jedi in humble brown cloaks and tunics and tabards, lightsabers at their belts, with the image of a uniformed police officer like a member of CorSec. “Sorta,” he said. “But they don’t work for the government; they work for the galaxy.” Or so Skywalker had told him. Peckhum had been surprised by the young Jedi Master’s friendly manner and humble, straightforward attitude, how willing he’d been to engage an old spacer bringing him supplies in conversation. “They’re some kind of religious group. They believe in the Force, or something like that. I guess it’s like this energy field they believe’s in everything. It gives ‘em their power.”   
  
“They just . . . protect people?” Zekk said. He blinked. “Why?”   
  
“Hell,” Peckhum said, shrugging, “I don’t know, kid. Guess they feel like they have to, like their power gives them extra responsibility or something.”   
  
A sudden smile broke over Zekk’s grimy face, not for Peckhum but directed someplace else, far away and wistful. “Astral,” he said softly.   
  
Peckhum knew what he meant. He felt that way about the Jedi, too. He still remembered how shattered the news of the Jedi Purge had left him, feeling as if the whole galaxy had suddenly broken, been turned upside down and shaken around roughly by a hand that didn’t care what happened to it. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”   
  
They were nearing the diner now, stepping out of the hangar into the noisy, crowded concourse outside. Peckhum wove through the crowd easily and slipped inside, then turned back to look for Zekk only to find that the boy had stuck with him and so was right behind him. The enticing smell of greasy diner food washed over them, and he could see Zekk bite down hard on his lower lip. The boy’s stomach gave a loud rumble that sounded as if it had come from a more imposing source than Zekk’s slight form. He flushed, his pale skin filling with humiliated color.   
  
Peckhum just smiled and gave a low chuckle as he guided Zekk into one of the booths in front of them with a hand on his shoulder. “I can tell you’re hungry, kid,” he said as he slid in across from him. He pushed the single piece of flimsiplast that formed the menu across the plastene table in Zekk’s direction. “You go ahead and decide what you want,” he said. “I always get the same thing.”   
  
Zekk was staring at the menu with wide eyes, his hands still shoved deep in his pockets. He took them out slowly and laid them on the table as if he didn’t quite dare touch the menu. "What's that, s—Peckhum?” he asked, correcting himself carefully.   
  
“Hmm?” Peckhum asked as he turned to gesture for the ancient servo-droid.   
  
“That you always get,” Zekk clarified.   
  
“Nerfburger with sauce and an Anoat Malted,” Peckhum said. “The burgers are decent here and I got a taste for malteds when I was running cargo on Anoat a couple years back.”   
  
“That’s okay with me, too,” Zekk said, “if you think it’s good. But bribb juice is fine.”   
  
“All right, kid,” Peckhum said. He hadn’t been able to help noticing that Zekk’s eyes had flicked down to the menu before he spoke, and he happened to know that the boy’s order was two of the cheapest items on it. He couldn’t say he didn’t appreciate that.   
  
The droid whirred up to them, its servomotors clanking dangerously, and Zekk and Peckhum both winced at the telltale sound of badly serviced mechanics at nearly the same time. Peckhum grinned to himself. His decision was looking better and better all the time. The kid had good instincts. “Nerfburger with sauce and an Anoat Malted for me and the same for the kid, but with a bribb juice,” Peckhum said. He looked dubiously at the droid. “You got that?”   
  
The droid buzzed. “Yes, sir,” it said in a metallic, vaguely feminine voice. “A nerfburger with sauce and an Anoat Malted for you and a nerfburger with sauce, an Anoat Malted, and a bribb juice for the young gentleman.”   
  
Peckhum could hear Zekk snort back a laugh. “Nah,” he said. “Just the burger and juice for the kid, got it?”   
  
The droid buzzed again. “Yes, sir,” it said, and repeated the order again, correctly this time. Peckhum nodded and it clanked off.   
  
“Well,” he said, turning back to Zekk. “We’ll see what we get.”   
  
The boy was still fighting a smile. “I think she got it that time,” he said. “Should be close enough, anyway. Doesn’t matter much to me if she gets it a little bit off.”   
  
“Yeah,” Peckhum said. “Whatever happens, it’d probably be kinda hard to mess it up too bad.” He looked speculatively at the boy across from him. “So, I’ve seen you’re a more’n fair mechanic,” he said, and Zekk flushed a little and looked down. “But what’s this about bein’ good at finding things?”   
  
Zekk shrugged and fiddled with the menu. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just this . . . talent I have.” He shifted as if uncomfortable. “I’ve always been good at it, I guess. Maybe I just notice things other people don’t or something.”   
  
“Huh,” Peckhum said. “Might come in handy someday, that.”   
  
“I hope so,” Zekk said. “I’d hate to be good at something worthless.” The words were delivered wryly, but Peckhum thought he was being serious.   
  
“Doubt you’d ever be that, boy,” he said.   
  
Zekk blinked and bit his lip, and his pale skin turned slightly pink beneath the dirt and engine grease. Something shifted in his eyes, a light creeping into them that Peckhum hadn’t noticed was missing before. “D-do you really think so?” he stammered.   
  
“’Course I do,” Peckhum said. “Think I’d have hired you if I thought different?”   
  
The smile Zekk gave him that time was a real one. “Thank you,” he said. “That’s . . . awful nice of you to say.”   
  
Peckhum was spared the trial of figuring out how to respond to such heart-wrenchingly sincere gratitude over a gesture so thoughtlessly small by the arrival of their food. Zekk’s attention shifted immediately to the burger with the total absorption of a boy who hadn’t eaten in far too long, as if he was afraid it would disappear out from under him if he gave it half a chance. He was done and draining the last of his bribb juice by the time Peckhum was half-finished with his own meal, though that was partly because he’d been distracted by watching Zekk eat. He wanted to buy the kid another burger, but judging by the way he’d practically inhaled that one he hadn’t eaten anything decent in far too long and too much too fast would probably just make him sick. He’d more than likely refuse the offer anyway, Peckhum reflected, considering his behavior earlier.   
  
“Any good, kid?” Peckhum asked as Zekk glanced around as if looking for a napkin, then gave up and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.   
  
“Great!” Zekk said enthusiastically. “Thank you! That was the best thing I’ve eaten in—” he hesitated “—uh, in a while.”   
  
Yeah, and probably the only thing, too, Peckhum thought, abruptly angry at a galaxy that would leave a good kid like this one hungry and desperate and alone. “Glad to hear it,” he said out loud, shoving back the thought. Zekk was tough, anyway. He’d come out of things okay, hadn’t he? He finished the last couple of bites of his own burger, downed the last of his drink, then slid out of the booth and got to his feet. “Guess I’d better go pay for this stuff,” he said.   
  
“All right,” Zekk said. “I’ll wait.” He clasped his hands and sat back in the booth, glancing around the rest of the diner with more interest than he’d shown before. Peckhum could understand that. The galaxy always seemed more interesting with a square meal in your belly.   
  
Seemed like the kid’d be fine. Peckhum started for the counter. It took him only a few minutes to complete the transaction, even with the slowness of the droid in charge—as far as he knew, the diner was run by a female Devaronian named Lysel who only bothered to shell out enough credits to employ the ancient droid and who worked in the back herself—and then he was heading back to the table where he’d left Zekk.   
  
The sight that met his eyes as he neared it was far from what he’d been expecting. Instead of sitting patiently where he’d left him, Zekk was standing, facing a man Peckhum thought he recognized dimly. It was clear that the conversation wasn’t a pleasant or friendly one—Zekk’s whole body was rigid with tension, and the man seemed none too happy either.   
  
“I told you already, Dreno,” Zekk was saying. “I don’t work for you anymore, and you can’t bully me into it, either. I have a new job. On a good ship. One where _you_ could never get yourself hired.” He was very pale, even more so than previously, his features drawn tight and his eyes too big, Peckhum saw as he got closer, and he realized with a jolt of anger that the kid was scared, though there was little outward sign except for his white face and shaking hands. Even as Peckhum watched he clasped them tightly behind his back as if to try and still their trembling.   
  
“Oh, come on, vent-crawler,” the man said derisively, “we both now that you’re nothing but space trash. No spacer’d hire a scrawny little runt like you. But you and I know you’re a fair mechanic. Come work under me again and I’ll see you get work. We both know you haven’t got any other choice, not if you wanna keep eating.”   
  
With a start of surprise, Peckhum placed him as the gundark-face from earlier and felt a wave of fury. The absolute schutta, to try to bully a kid with the prospect of when his next meal would be.   
  
Zekk’s features set, and his eyes flashed. “So I can do all the work and you can get all the credits again, you mean?” he spat. “Thanks, but no thanks, Dreno. There are better ways to eat than to have to lick your boots and beg you to toss me a few credits for work _I_ already did, you slimy Hutt. No, you’re lower than a Hutt, you’re just a Hutt’s slime-trail. I’d go to work for them before I ever worked for you again. I wouldn’t work for you if you were the last paying being in the galaxy.”   
  
“Why, you little—” Dreno started, and raised his fist, and Zekk’s eyes went wide and blank with terror, but before that fist could fall Peckhum had his hand on Dreno’s shoulder, spinning him around.   
  
“You wouldn’t be harassing a member of my crew, would’ya?” Peckhum asked, letting his hand drop to his blaster. He was accorded a fast draw, and he wasn’t afraid to use the weapon if he had to. He could see Dreno’s shifty gray eyes follow the motion, see the other man tense as he took in the unspoken threat. “’Cause I have the feeling you’d regret that.”   
  
Dreno gave him a twitchy, unpleasant smile. “Of course not,” he said quickly. “No, me and the boy were just having a little chat; we’re old friends, see?” He glanced back at Zekk, who stiffened. The whole thing might have been more convincing if the kid didn’t look like he was about to be sick, Peckhum thought.   
  
“Sure,” Peckhum said. “Sure. Do I look like a Kowakian monkey-lizard to you? Now get out of here before I decide you aren’t worth the trouble and just shoot ya.” He flicked the safety off his blaster and slid it a centimeter or so from its holster.   
  
“Right,” Dreno said. “I’ll just be going.” He turned to leave, then rounded on Zekk. “Don’t think you’ve dodged me for good, you little brat,” he growled, and gave the boy a vicious shove. “You’re vapebait.”   
  
Peckhum’s blaster was in his hand a moment later. “You come near him again and I’ll shoot you,” he said. “Just like that, no questions asked.”   
  
Dreno rounded on him, swore viciously, and then stalked off with another wild swing in Zekk’s direction, though the boy ducked in time to avoid this one. Peckhum flicked the safety back on and holstered his blaster, then offered Zekk his hand to help him back up. “You all right, kid?” he asked. “Sorry ‘bout that. I wasn’t expecting him to go for you.”   
  
Zekk’s hand was shaking when he clasped it around Peckhum’s, but he dropped it quickly and looked away, brushing himself off. “It’s all right,” he said. “I—I’m the one who’s sorry. I didn’t want you to have to get involved in th-that. ‘S my problem.”   
  
Peckhum couldn’t believe it—the kid was trying to protect _him_? “My crew’s problems are my problems,” he said. “And last I checked you’re a member of my crew.”   
  
Zekk took a deep breath and stared fixedly down at the floor. “Thank you,” he said softly, gravely, sounding like he was struggling to keep his voice from wobbling too badly. “But it’s too much trouble. I don’t want to be trouble for you, or for the _Lightning Rod_. I—” Peckhum could see his fingers clench tight around themselves where he had them clasped at his back. “I’ve never wanted to be a problem for anybody,” he whispered.   
  
“Not a problem, kid,” Peckhum said. “Don’t you think I’ve dealt with scum like him before? It’s just like blowing mynocks off your power cables. You have to do it every once in a while.” He smiled encouragingly down at the boy. “That was pretty brave of you, kiddo, telling him where to shove it like that.”   
  
Zekk’s cheeks flushed red. “Not so brave,” he said. “Just—I’d rather die than let scum like him see how much he s-sc-scares me.” His voice broke, and Peckhum could see his shoulders start to shake. He reached up and wiped one hand roughly across his eyes, then took a deep breath, and the shudders stopped. “Sorry, sir,” he said. “Peckhum. Sorry about that. I’m—I’m all right now.”   
  
Kriff it, Peckhum thought. The boy was tougher than he had any right to be. “Come on, kid,” he said, “let’s show this place our ion trail.” He started out and was relieved when Zekk fell into step behind him. “So,” he continued once they were out of the diner, “what’s the story between you and that piece of slime, anyway?”   
  
Zekk shrugged. “He worked the last ship I did,” he said, and Peckhum thought he was keeping his voice carefully even. “I met him when I went there looking for work. He talked to me and said he’d get me a job. He—he seemed friendly enough then.” That even voice wavered, just a little. “And I really needed the work, so I was grateful. I mean, I asked him how much I was going to get paid and all, and he said as much as everybody else and that he’d take care of it, so I—I _trusted_ him.” His voice was furious, and when Peckhum looked back at him his mouth was compressed into a tight hard line and his eyes were burning with anger, more at himself than anyone else Peckhum got the impression, even Dreno.   
  
“But that didn’t happen,” Peckhum filled in.   
  
“Vaped it,” Zekk said bitterly. “I worked my behind off that run, and he kept the credits. Oh, he tossed me a few creds at the end, but it was barely enough for a snack.”   
  
And how long ago was that? Peckhum wanted to ask, but he kept the question to himself. The kid was touchy enough about that already, and the last thing he wanted to do was humiliate him further. “So why’s he still hanging around you like stench off a wet Wookiee?” he asked instead.   
  
Zekk’s lips twitched a bit at the colorful idiom. “Guess he liked getting paid for his job without him having to do it,” he said. “Didn’t want to let that get away from him. Plus—” he gave a hard swallow “—I think he was mad ‘cause I never cowered in front of him the way he wanted me to. I don’t know. Maybe he just wanted to see me cry. B-but I’d never cry in f-front of _him_.” He bit his lip hard and looked away.   
  
“Good for you, kid,” Peckhum said softly.   
  
Zekk looked up at him, his eyes startled. “You think so?”   
  
“Definitely,” Peckhum said. “You’ve got a lot of guts. More’n a lot of full-grown spacers I’ve known.”   
  
“No,” Zekk said earnestly, as if it was important Peckhum understand this. “No. He—Dreno—he terrifies me.” He sounded miserable. “I’m not brave at all. Just stubborn.”   
  
“That’s what being brave’s about, Zekk,” Peckhum said. “Being stubborn when you’re scared.”   
  
Zekk blinked. “Oh,” he said.   
  
Peckhum laid a hand on his shoulder, and Zekk didn’t wince quite as badly as he had the last time Peckhum’d made the gesture. “All right, kid,” he said. “Let’s get the last of that cargo loaded and let the _Lightning Rod_ get us off this rock.”   
  
Zekk looked up at him and grinned. “Okay,” he said.


	3. Chapter 3

Zekk looped the last of the cargo webbing around the crates and fastened it against the side of the hold, still careful not to tweak his sore wrist, then stepped back, wiping his hands against his jumpsuit.  His heart was still racing just a bit from the encounter with Dreno, adrenaline hot and prickling beneath his skin even as he attempted to banish it.  He stepped back from the cargo hold and sneaked a look at Peckhum out of the corner of his eye as the spacer keyed the door closed and entered a sequence of numbers into the control pad, and had to fight the combination of hot, shamed guilt and trembling, uncertain wonder that rose up in his throat.  Peckhum had stepped in between him and Dreno, had protected him when he hadn’t had to.  He didn’t even know the man, he’d only been working for him for what, a few hours?  He hadn’t expected anything . . . anything like that.  
  
And Peckhum’d bought him lunch, too.  He was being so nice, Zekk was almost scared.  He didn’t know how to react or what to think.  Payment or not, getting a meal with him, paying for him like that, was like something someone back on—that place where he’d come from—might have done for an—for someone who was alone.  Did Peckhum want something from him?  Like Dreno had?  Was that what this was all about?  Or was he really just . . . kind?  It seemed hard to believe.  
  
Peckhum’s eyes looked kind.  He . . . felt kind, somehow.  Zekk’s heart, his every instinct, seemed to be shouting at him to trust this man.  He wanted to trust that, he did, but ever since he’d left it seemed like people had betrayed him and ignored him and just . . . not wanted him, and he just couldn’t quite believe that this one spacer was somehow an exception.  Why would he be?  
  
“So, kid,” Peckhum asked, turning toward him, and Zekk jumped, interrupted in the middle of his thoughts.  “Ready to show this place our thruster wash?”  
  
“Sure am,” Zekk said.  
  
“Come on,” Peckhum said, “this way to the cockpit.”  Zekk fell into step behind him.  
  
“What about that hyperdrive cable?” he asked.  “Are you sure you don’t want me to replace it first?”  
  
“Huh,” Peckhum scratched his chin thoughtfully, not breaking stride.  “Do you think it’ll hold long enough for a couple of jumps?  I have to make one or two stops before Coruscant, at least one in the Mid Rim.”  
  
Zekk thought about it carefully, remembering the old power cable, the look, the feel of it in his hands.  He’d always had kind of an instinct for when machines or components were about to blow out, or when they had to be replaced, sometimes even how long they would last.  “I think it’ll hold till then,” he said.  “Probably not all the way to Coruscant, though.  But I’ve never been there before; I don’t know how long the jumps are.”  
  
Peckhum shrugged.  “That’s about what I thought,” he said.  He grinned down at Zekk as he stepped through into the cockpit, the door sliding open before him.  “Don’t worry, kid, she’ll hold together.”  
  
Zekk smiled back.  “I wasn’t worried,” he said.  “She’s a good ship, I can tell.”  He stepped into the cockpit after Peckhum and slipped his hands into his pockets to keep himself from touching anything and breaking it by accident, looking around with awe.  He’d worked a lot of ships before this, but he’d never been allowed into the cockpit of one of them before.  True, the _Lightning Rod_ was a lot smaller than most of those other ships had been, but that didn’t change how amazing it was to be standing there.  He was afraid to touch anything, but at the same time he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the controls, the readouts, the buttons and levers and displays, trying to remember what all of them did from the sketchy information about interstellar flight he’d been able to piece together.  He wanted to fly ships someday; he didn’t know how he’d get there or what he’d fly them to do, but all of a sudden what had seemed like a stupid dream before seemed closer than it ever had.  
  
Peckhum grinned.  “Knew you were a smart kid,” he said.  He slid into the pilot’s seat and waved at the spot next to him.  “Come on, sit down.”  
  
Zekk blinked at him, his breath catching in his throat.  “Are—are you sure?” he breathed, almost whispering.  He couldn’t believe it.  Surely Peckhum wouldn’t let him actually sit in the co-pilot’s seat, wouldn’t actually trust him that far.  
  
“You don’t sit up here how’re you gonna learn?” Peckhum asked, and Zekk wondered if he’d ever remember how to breathe again.  Peckhum was going to teach him how to fly?  He really honestly was?  Zekk hadn’t even needed to ask if he could, and—he shivered and shifted back and forth on his feet.  This really was too good to be true.  “Come on, kid.”  The spacer looked back at Zekk and gave him an understanding half-smile.  “It’s all right.  I wouldn’ta hired you if I didn’t think you had the brains and the guts.”  
  
“But—but how do you know?  How do you know you can—can trust me?” Zekk heard himself burst out, then bit his lip and looked down at his clunky-too big boots and the deck plating, his heart plunging down toward them.  Why had he said that?  That had been stupid.  He shouldn’t ask why Peckhum was being so nice to him, shouldn’t demand answers, should just be thankful for it while it lasted and not do anything to make the man angry at him, or say anything that’d lead him to come to his senses and reconsider his judgment.  No one else had thought much of Zekk so far, of a scrawny human boy, a drifting piece of humanoid space-trash, and any time now Peckhum would come to his senses and start acting just like everyone else.  
  
“I don’t know,” Peckhum said.  “I just have a feeling.  You’re a good kid, it don’t take much to see that.”  
  
Zekk bit his lip and didn’t look up.  “No one else thought so,” he mumbled before he thought, and then wanted to shrivel up and die of shame, because he’d said that out loud.  What was wrong with him?  This man wasn’t interested in his—in anything like that, and telling him how little everyone else had thought of him wasn’t the way to produce a good impression!  Which he desperately wanted to do.  Peckhum had been good to him, and Zekk wanted to at least live up to that.  
  
“Maybe no one else took the time to look,” Peckhum said.  “Listen, Zekk, the galaxy is a hard, cold place, but not everyone has vacuum where their insides should be.  All right?”  
  
Zekk shrugged painfully.  “I don’t know,” he said.  “It . . . it isn’t that.  I don’t think you’re . . . you’re like Dreno.  And I’m truly grateful, I am, but . . . but . . . you don’t have any reason to trust me.”  
  
“And you don’t have any reason to trust me, either,” Peckhum said, and Zekk looked up, startled that the man would point that out, even if it had been what he was thinking in the deep places of his mind, uneasy and ashamed.  “It’s pretty obvious that people ain’t treated you any too well since you’ve been on your own.  Why should I be any different?”  
  
Zekk felt himself flush.  “I . . . I don’t know,” he said.  “I’m sorry, sir, I was . . . it wasn’t that I . . .” He swallowed miserably but forced himself to say it.  “I just asked for a job because I was desperate.”  
  
Peckhum raised his eyebrows.  “Not that I blame you for that, kiddo,” he said, “but was that the only reason you signed on with me and the _Lightning Rod_?  You could have found a different berth.  A bigger ship.  You could have asked me to introduce you to someone else, yanno, that kind of thing.”  
  
“N-no.”  Zekk’s face flamed.  He swallowed hard but forced himself not to look away from those clear blue eyes.  “I guess I . . .” it was stupid, and he didn’t want to admit it, but he wasn’t going to _lie_.  “. . . I just sort of had a feeling.”  
  
“See?” Peckhum said, and grinned.  “Goes both ways.  Look, kid, I’m not going to make you any guarantees, because the galaxy isn’t like that.  But I’m not going to just leave you drifting in vacuum, either.  You get me?”  
  
Zekk looked at him and swallowed again against the thick, tight lump in his throat.  He wanted to believe Peckhum, he really did.  But he just . . . couldn’t.  He couldn’t just . . . ignore everything that had happened to him just like that, forget it all and just let himself trust in someone.  But, oh stars, he wanted to.  He wanted to be able to believe, he wanted that part of himself back, but it felt like Ennth’s crushing gravitational forces had flattened that inside of him, too, when they had taken his parents away.  “I . . . yes, sir,” he said unhappily, not knowing what else he could say.  
  
“Aw, kid, don’t fret yourself over it,” Peckhum said.  “Just sit on down.  I have a lot of stuff to show you.”  
  
Zekk looked at the controls to the ship and felt that excitement start to rise up in him again like the bubbles in fizzade, pushing down the misery and discomfort again into the tight hard knot in his stomach where they stayed most of the time.  Whatever else, this was a chance to learn about flying a real ship.  A real ship!  He took a deep breath and shoved all the rest of it down too, all the aching uncertainty and leftover sadness from . . . back then, and sat down where Peckhum had indicated in the co-pilot’s seat.  
  
“Buckle up,” Peckhum said, and Zekk hurried to fasten his safety straps.  A moment later, Peckhum began to flip switches and adjust dials.  “All right,” he said after a bit.  “Here we go.”  And Zekk forgot everything else for a moment as the ship began to lift off.  His fists clenched on the armrests as he leaned forward to watch eagerly as the ground dropped away beneath them.  He’d never seen a spaceship take off before, felt it, yes, but not seen it like this.  
  
A few minutes after lift-off, when Zekk was still mesmerized by the spectacle of the ground curving away beneath them, the com beeped and Peckhum toggled it to allow a computerized voice to fill the cockpit.  Zekk managed to keep himself from jumping, but it was close.  
  
“New Republic freighter _Lightning Rod_ ,” the tinny feminine voice said, “this is Nolar Port Control.  You are cleared for hyperspace jump.  Thank you for visiting us, and have a pleasant trip to Coruscant.”  
  
“Thanks,” Peckhum replied.  “I will.  Permission registered.  Making the jump.”  He flicked off the com and turned to Zekk with a grin.  “Here goes, kid,” he said, and pulled back on what even Zekk knew was the hyperspace lever.  
  
The stars blurred into streaks around them, elongating before Zekk’s eyes.  He stared until the screen filled with the blue shapes of hyperspace and even then he couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away.  
  
He jumped again as a hand settled onto his head, ruffling his hair, and glanced over at Peckhum.  The spacer grinned at his wide eyes and patted him on the shoulder.  His hand felt so warm there.  “Well, kiddo,” he said.  “That’s that.  Now how about I show you how to work my pretty lady here?”  
  
Zekk grinned.  “That’d be great,” he said, eagerly, without having to think about it.  
  
“And, kid?” Peckhum said.  
  
“Yeah?” Zekk asked, off-balance and suddenly unsure again.  
  
“It’s Peckhum, not sir.”  
  
Zekk could feel his smile widen into another grin and didn’t try to stop it.  “All right,” he said.  “Sorry, sir.”  
  
Peckhum frowned at him for a moment, then laughed as he realized Zekk was joking, still grinning at him.  “Okay, you little scamp,” he said, “here.  Do you know what this one does?”


End file.
